We’re looking to build a integration into our loyalty program using Squares loyalty API.
Use Case: Customer taps credit card, our app (using the loyalty API) matches the customer phone number to our loyalty system, and deducts any stored value the customer has for that merchant. We return what was deducted in our system, and if there is a remaining balance to be deducted by the credit card.
Is this possible? If not what alternatives do I have using the Loyalty API to match clients between Square and our system?
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Yes, it is possible to match customers between Square and your system using the Loyalty API. You can create a loyalty account for a customer using the CreateLoyaltyAccount endpoint, which requires the program ID and the customer’s phone number.
Once the loyalty account is created, you can use the RetrieveLoyaltyAccount or SearchLoyaltyAccounts endpoints to retrieve the loyalty account information using the customer’s phone number or customer ID. This will allow you to match the customer in your system with their corresponding loyalty account in Square.
To deduct points from a customer’s loyalty account, you can use the RedeemLoyaltyReward endpoint. This endpoint requires the loyalty account ID and the reward ID, and it will deduct the required points from the customer’s loyalty account.
If there is a remaining balance to be deducted by the credit card, you can use the Payments API to charge the card for the remaining amount.
Please note that you should always ask customers for permission before saving their card information and linking cards on file without obtaining customer permission can result in your application being disabled without notice.
The problem is more on tap trying to identify the customer. Also are you going to build this whole checkout experience with our SDKs and APIs or are you looking to use the Square app?
I assume we’d be building out the experience since the stored value and other conditions (promo expiry, time of day etc… ) would be stored on our backend.
To back up a bit, we provide promotional vouchers that customers signup for and add to their accounts (we have phone number and email as identifiers). These vouchers are free and often expire or have other conditions around their use.
We’re looking for the most frictionless way for customers and staff to be able to redeem these vouchers at any location using Square. The tap-payment customer match scenario (outlined above) is the smoothest we can think of, but if we have to build a separate square app for voucher scanning or build an entirely new payment app that has our system built into it that’s fine. Just looking for options on how to solve this use case.
I don’t think that the tap method will be the best scenario. This is because customers can change what method they pay with. The best way would be to first integrate a way to identify the customer. Like a QR code that can be scanned. That way you know who is checking out all the time. Then apply any available discount and allow the customer to checkout with whatever payment method they choose to pay with.
(Our app does all) Create an app that scans the QR code and redeems any stored promotion, then use the same app to handle any residual payment using the Payment API’s.
Or
(Our app + native Square payments UX) Create an app that scans the QR code and redeems any stored promotion, then sends any residual value to the native square payments app to handle the remaining balance.
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